Oscar's Green Lens

 Hello again! Apologies for the wait, school has been quite busy recently. Today, I'd like to share some of the recent government/environmental news from the past few weeks.  The ATA, or Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, is a yearly assessment made by U.S. spy agencies which details worldwide threats to the U.S. 4 days ago, on March 25th, the 2025 issue was published, and for the first time in 10 years, Climate Change was not one of the threats listed. This removal is largely tied to the Trump Administration, who is moving to remove Climate Action from the federal agenda. When questioned at the Senate Intelligence Committee, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said, "What I focused this annual threat assessment on, and the [Intelligence Committee] focused this threat assessment on, are the most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security." In my opinion, this removal is unjustified. While climate change is not as imm...

     As I write this blog, I intend to stay as neutral on various topics as possible, only viewing them in the lens of environmental science. This is especially true when I discuss the topic of politics. As some of you may know, the United States recently inaugurated the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump. I assume most of you have heard his name echo through the news channels and social media. I like to think I keep up with the news, whether that be through the NYT or TikTok or Instagram. I hear all about Trump's new executive order or his new plan for the economy, so I thought: what is Trump doing in terms of the environment. So: I did a little research.          As of February 10th, 2025, a little under a month ago, President Trump signed an executive order that immediately bans paper straws from being used in Federal buildings, and " requires the development of a National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws within 45 days", ...